I'm about to set up a tank for a group of 10 of these fish. I've just spent the last few hours reading as much info as I can on them. I appreciate that many have tried to breed them but without success so far.

My plans are a 24" x 15" x 12" tank with gentle sponge filtration. I plan on using floating plants either Salvinia natans or Amazon Frogbit along with a lot of fine leafed plants such as Cabomba aquatica, My plans are to provide a black water environment with a pH of around 5. I do not plan on keeping any other fish in this tank.

Feeding will be predominantly life foods such as banana worms, microworms, daphnia, brine shrimp, bloodworm, white worms and grindal worms with occasional feedings of frozen cyclops etc. I'm trying to simulate as natural diet as I can and hope to completely avoid any kind of dry or freeze dried foods.

My questions are

What substrate would you advise? I was thinking of using a black coloured sand to a depth that I could safely plant the Cabomba in.

Perhaps a few stones, bogwood and redmoor wood to provide additional cover along with lots of plants. Would this simulate natural conditions?

Finally, does anyone have any tips as to how to simulate natural conditions on an annual basis of the Batang Hari drainage in Sumatra? For example how many hours lighting and temperature etc.

Sounds like you are on the right track. My group are in a planted 33 long (36x12x12). Even in conditions that do not mimic their natural habitat (pH 7.6 hardness 130 ppm) and on a diet of frozen foods the fish are healthy and all the females are full of eggs.
Your choice of filtration is spot on to keep potential eggs or fry safe. I doubt that you will need to maintain such a low pH, but I would focus on keeping the hardness low.
I would also plant as heavily as possible. My fish stay in the densest plants and avoid open spaces. Ideally the tank would have a cover of floating plants with trailing roots over low light plants like Java moss, Jave fern, and Crypts. I would choose the substrate based on what plants you will keep.
I also added several small bamboo tubes like those used to spawn Tatia. The fish sometimes hide in the bamboo.
One drawback is that you will almost never see these fish in an ideal set up. However, if breeding is your goal I would not add tankmates.
-Shane

"My journey is at an end and the tale is told. The reader who has followed so faithfully and so far, they have the right to ask, what do I bring back? It can be summed up in three words. Concentrate upon Uganda."
Winston Churchill, My African Journey

Well I'll scape it properly later, but after reading as much info as I can I thought I'd try and mimic the grass like conditions they're found in so settled on fifty Echinodorus tennellus as it should do OK in the lower light conditions it will experience when I add Limnobium laevigatum next week when it arrives. The Anubias barteri 'nana' and Echinodorus bleheri are in there just because. The Eleocharis parvula should also grow to add a more grass like carpet and should in theory cover most of the ground in time.

I hope the bogwood and redmoor wood will also give them more cover as needed. There's more in there than it looks as a lot is obstructed by the dwarf swords.

The 10 Shadow cats I have are currently in another tank and so they'll be added once I've finished scaping and got the water conditions how I want. I've also started some live food cultures too.

I've found some info on the weather conditions these experience in Sumatra and so will try and mimic a 'rainy season' by building a spray bar which will be on a timer over 5 months of the year. The temperature only changes by 1 degree celsius throughout the year, so will also adjust that. I guess I'll increase blackwater tannins during the rainy season too. Any other ideas greatly received.

Filtration wise I've just deliberately gone with a tiny sponge filter and tiny 100l per hour air pump powering it. As it won't be heavily stocked and will contain a lot of plants I don't feel the need to use anything more powerful.

Water wise I've used RO and will adjust accordingly when I get time.

Last edited by Jarcave on Thu Oct 12, 2017 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

With regard to plants, I have tried Echionodorus tenellus in low light often, without much succes. Sagittaria subocellata (I hope this is the correct name) did, however, work very nice under low light.

They do, however, grow much larger. I have had them for years in a 30 cm (12 inch) hiogh tank, which is sufficiently high, but leaves are 40 cm

When considering a grass like species I did consider Sagittaria. I have Amazon frogbit on order so I guess it's all down to how much light that will block out. I order 5 to 8 boxes of aquatic plants weekly from the Far East for an aquatic business I own so changing and adding species is no problem at all.

So today I tested the pH to find it at 6.8. Temperature is currently 24.5c and my TDS pen measured 0! I think I need to calibrate and test the thing.

API toot tabs and the liquid fertiliser Tropical Aqua Plant will hopefully help to keep the plants healthy. I caught all 10 shadows from their tank which took longer than expected as they blend in with regular gravel quite well. I've examined all of the fish but can't see any with green eggs at present.

My plans are to gradually lower the pH and increase blackwater tannins. I'm hoping that feeding them plenty of live and frozen food will bring them into condition and that I'll see eggs sooner rather than later to prove they're healthy and will then go from there.

I've added a mature sponge filter in addition to a tiny corner one. I'll remove it as it looks unsightly in around 6 to 8 weeks once I think the new one is mature.

The fish have been introduced today and will be fed live daphnia and a few white worms tomorrow. I'll then experiment with different foods later.

I once read that a TDS measurement provides half the value in microsiemen. That is, 0,8 microsiemen ought to be a tds of 0. Or 0,4, but generally the digitals are rounded away

Because it is just a conversion factor there isn't a single standard value.

If the ions are expected to be mainly Na+ and Cl- (water that is brackish) then the usual conversion factor is 0.5 (100microS = 50ppm TDS), for use in all other freshwater (where the predominate ions are likely to be Ca++ and HCO3-) the conversion factor is 0.64 (100 microS = 64ppm TDS).

All the conductivity meter I've seen, which offer "TDS" as an option, use 0.64.

It isn't an exact conversion factor, because if you have "black water" with large amounts of complex carbon compounds (DOC) these contribute to the Total Dissolved Solids (when you evaporate a known volume of water to dryness), but they aren't charged and don't contribute to the electrical conductivity reading.

Still, in most cases (all natural water but black water) the amount of dissolved solids which do not conduct is low.

I wrote natural water, because a cup of coffee can be a nice example of little added conductivity, but a lot of dissolved suger. Especially if it is my coffee, as I use quite a bit of Sugar.

Just straight black coffee for me, but I agree conductivity is a useful measurement, and because of the likelihood that most of the conductivity in natural waters is derived from dissolved Ca++ and HCO3- ions, it gives you some indication of hardness as well.

Well Amazon Frogbit has been in there a while and is now growing well. The Echinodorus tennellus is still doing OK despite that it's losing light with the floating plant. Snails have been spotted so I've just treated with gastropex.

As for the fish, well Shane was correct, you rarely see them! I strongly suspect that anyone who's seriously considered breeding this species has probably given up due to their elusive nature!

They're being fed on a lot of live and some frozen foods. No signs of any egg laden females yet, but as sightings are so uncommon due to the now very heavy plant growth it doesn't mean that they are not in spawning condition. I'll persevere a little more!

Well Amazon Frogbit has been in there a while and is now growing well. The Echinodorus tennellus is still doing OK despite that it's losing light with the floating plant. Snails have been spotted so I've just treated with gastropex.

Best of luck with your breeding attempt here! I think it's always interesting to figure out what a species that doesn't normally breed needs to breed.

Question, though: why remove snails? I know for some species of catfish and some species of snails the snails seem to improve egg health by removing algae on the eggs or removing dead eggs (while other species of snails definitely eat eggs). I'm not questioning your decision, just wondering why you made this call.

Today I found the airpump floating in the tank. It seems my four year old thought it was an internal power filter.

Switching everything off at the mains and just being thankful he hadn't had an accident I started to strip down the tank to discover the heater was dead as was the digital thermometer. Feeling slightly gutted I decided to remove the dead fish which meant removing all of the plants and wood. To my amazement I counted nine of ten fish alive. I fitted a new heater and air pump immediately and started to add everything back. Eventually I was done, all I had left to do was pick up the small shard of bogwood on the floor which had snapped off. I picked it up and felt pain in my fingertip. It was then that I realised I had a pectoral spine in me. I added the tenth fish back to the tank and it swam off, so all alive and well. Changes to where the new pump resides have already been made and he's been 'educated'.